Representational state transfer (REST) or RESTful web services provide interoperability between computer systems on the Internet. REST-compliant web services enable a requestor to access and manipulate representations of web resources (e.g., applications) using a uniform and predefined set of stateless operations. A REST API uses generally HTTP requests to GET, PUT, POST and DELETE data and relies on a stateless, client-server, cacheable communications protocol. REST is an architecture style for designing networked applications and is therefore particularly prevalent in and relevant to, multi-server (multi-resource) computing environments. Specifically, because APIs provide interoperability between computer systems and allow for standardized connectivity, they are frequently utilized as endpoints on servers that enable other resources to access applications associated with the APIs that are deployed on the servers. For example, various REST APIs may be available from each of the individual servers in a multi-server environment, such as a cloud computing environment, providing endpoints to applications executing on the various servers.
A client accessing the APIs available from various servers in a multi-server environment, including but not limited to a cloud computing environment, cannot view, from a single point-of-entry, the APIs available from all the servers of the multi-server computing environment. Complicating the ability to access consolidated API information from a single point of entry is the fact that each individual server can be managed separately and APIs could be added, updated, and removed dynamically, due to applications being installed and uninstalled on individual servers. Additionally, a common API could be available on multiple servers and a client connecting to the multi-server environment would not know from which server to access the API.